国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

find just the same treatment of the subject of the Western Paradise as in the ninth- and tenth-century pictures
of Tun-huang, where it was so favourite a theme.

The main point to grasp is that the tradition of Buddhist art which we first find formulated in Gandhāra,
after assimilating certain minor elements (chiefly Iranian) in its passage across Eastern Turkestan, was transformed
in China by the genius of that country's art, and was so transmitted to Japan. Those who fix their attention
solely on the Indian and Hellenistic ingredients in this art may be inclined to conceive of the Buddhist pictorial
tradition in China and Japan as merely a continuation of the art of Gandhāra. But, apart from the frescoes
of Ajaṇṭā, it is only in China and Japan that Buddhist painting rises to greatness; and all that derives from
Gandhāra in subject-matter and formula is subdued to the creative instinct of design by which the Chinese genius
makes them its own.

For, before Buddhism was ever heard of in the empire, China had an original and powerful art, chiefly
occupied with secular subjects. And the Tun-huang paintings, Buddhist as they are, throw light even on
Chinese secular art. Look, for instance, at the three banners reproduced on Pl. LXXIV. The central one
represents the Seven Treasures; and below are scenes of women washing the infant Buddha, and the Buddha's
first steps. The two banners at the sides represent equally scenes from the Buddha legend; his conception,
birth, etc. Is it not remarkable that everything here is translated into Chinese terms: types, dress, architecture,
landscape? It is the same with all the Jātaka scenes which are painted as borders to the large pictures of
Paradise, as in Pl. LVI. That these sacred scenes should be given a character so entirely Chinese testifies
to the confident healthy vigour of Chinese art. And here, too, we have a precious indication of the style of T'ang
painting in secular subjects.

This we hardly know from other sources. There are numberless descriptions of great pictures recorded,
but of actual works which can be attributed to this period with any confidence, how very few have survived the
succession of wars which have devastated China! Among those few, moreover, how little that shows us what
figure-painting in secular subjects was like! The scenes from the Jātaka stories, therefore, which border many
of the Tun-huang pictures, and the banners portraying similar subjects, are of extraordinary interest: and besides
these we have a whole series of portraits of donors, painted under votive pictures, just as in early European art.
Here are slight materials, it is true; but still they form a clue, and give us a kind of distant glimpse of the
secular art of T'ang. The fact that a few of the pictures bear dates adds immensely to their value as documents.
The Buddha attended by Planetary Divinities (Pl. LXXI) bears a date corresponding to A.D. 897; the Four
Forms of Avalokiteśvara (Desert Cathay, Pl. VIII) a date corresponding to A.D. 864. Other dates found
are of the ninth or beginning of the tenth century; and comparison with the undated work leads us to the
conclusion that the great majority of the paintings belong to the ninth century, though a few may possibly be
earlier, and a few are later.

Of pre-T'ang painting we know nothing except the picture by Ku K'ai-chih, 'Admonitions of the Instructress
in the Palace', now in the British Museum, and the 'Lo-shen fu' in the Freer collection in America, attributed to
the same master. Even if these paintings be not allowed to be actually originals of the fourth century, they are
demonstrably in the style and design of that time. The figures in the banner reproduced in the centre of
Pl. LXXIV remind us, not altogether remotely, of Ku K'ai-chih's women with their stately yet gracious
carriage and buoyant flexile movement. But the T'ang ideal of form is different; it is massive rather than
slender, the lines are not attenuated. Of complex figure-design the Jātaka scenes, with their simple motives,
indicate little, but we note in the best of them that beautiful use of spacing which is the peculiar idiom of Chinese
art in its maturity. In the landscape backgrounds, slight as they are, we seem to see the kind of treatment on
which the landscape of the old art of Japan, as shown in the scrolls of the Tosa School, was founded. And this
is interesting, because it tends to show that even in this tradition, claimed to be exclusively Japanese, Chinese
prototypes counted for much.

Returning now to the Buddhist element in these paintings, we may single out for particular mention the
magnificent embroidery-picture reproduced on Pl. CIV. The reproduction gives inevitably a quite inadequate
idea of the impressiveness of the original. In grandeur of design and beauty of colour this ranks as one of the
very finest of the series; and we can imagine how splendid must have been the painting which it copied.
The large picture of 'Two Forms of Avalokiteśvara' (Thousand Buddhas, Pl. XV) has similar qualities of design,
though the actual workmanship of the painting is rather callous and heavy. But in two or three of the Maṇḍalas
(see especially Thousand Buddhas, Pl. III, and ibid. Pl. I, II), the workmanship, in its subtle modulation of line and